Urizen

Urizen is a demon introduced in Devil May Cry 5 as the central antagonist. "Urizen" is, in fact, the demonic half of Vergil's soul made flesh; the embodiment of his lust for power.

Appearance
Urizen is a tall colossal humanoid demon with four eyes, large sharp teeth and claws. His most prominent features are the thick root-like layers of flesh that form spikes on his body like a royal cape and around his head like a crown. He also has several blue glowing orbs on his body.

After devouring the demonic fruit of the Qliphoth, the veins that cover his body shed away and reveal his true form: a large blue demonic humanoid with various eyes placed over his body, with three larger eyes on his shoulders and torso. In addition, his face remains largely human but with sharpened teeth.

Story
Urizen is in fact the demonic half of Vergil that was born after he used the Yamato to split his human and demon halves and absorbed the Devil Bringer. Equipped with all of Vergil's knowledge of demonic power leveling and with none of his human morality to hold him back. Urizen went dormant for a time but emerged days later in Red Grave City where he planted the seed of the demon tree Qliphoth intending to have it drain the blood of humanity to spawn a fruit of concentrated power and evolve to the level of a demon god.

Urizen's other half, the human V, acted to stop him, mugging several people to get the funds he needed to hire Dante, Trish and Lady to go after Urizen while later going to get Nero to help as well. Urizen easily defeats the team of demon hunters hitting Dante so hard that he shatters Rebellion and knocking Dante out of his makeshift palace while forcing the reinforcements in the form of V and Nero to retreat.

Deciding to have the two serve him, Urizen transforms Lady and Trish into demon form to serve him, Artemis and Cavaliere Angelo. Over a month after his initial clash with Dante Urizen is again confronted by Nero and though the young demon hunter remained no match for Urizen, he managed to break the Demon King's shield and strike his hand, surprising him. Angered enough to rise from his throne, Urizen nearly kills Nero but this time Dante is the one who interrupts their spat in his new Sin Devil Trigger form and his new weapon the Devil Sword Dante. Now vastly more powerful Dante holds his own against the Demon King but before their fight could continue any further, the Qlipoth tree reaches its apex and has begun to bear fruit. Not troubled by the "inconvience" that Dante posed, Urizen takes his leave to claim the fruit.

During their third encounter Dante finds Urizen in the Qlipoth's inner most chamber where the Demon King gazed upon the Qlipoth fruit, which would not only grant untold power but also reign as the undisputed Demon King. Though Dante tries to reason with his brother's demonic self, noting their mother's sacrifice to save them, Urizen brushes off Dante's tale and successfully feasts upon the long desired fruit of Qliphoth. With newfound power, Urizen battles Dante once again but despite all the power the fruit gave him, Dante succeeded in defeating his brother's demonic half. As he lay dying V climbed on top of him and stabbed his cane into his chest facilitating the return of Vergil.

Personality
As the demonic half of Vergil, Urizen represents the darkest aspects of his personality, chiefly his unending thirst for more power. Completely devoid of humanity, Urizen is utterly heartless and cruel, showing no mercy to his foes, be they demon, human or even a member of his original selves' family. He didn't hesitate to unleash the Qlipoth tree upon the human world, slaughtering thousands. Like most demons, Urizen looks down upon the powerless and weak, namely mortal humans.

Unlike most demons, who constantly taunt and rant against their enemies, Urizen is largely stoic and silent, appearing disinterested in those who challenge him. However, Urizen is also prideful as after Nero managed to actually strike and wound him during their second encounter, Urizen looked surprised and enraged, forcing him to rise from his throne and fully battle with Nero, nearly killing him. He was also insulted in how Dante returned to battle him again, interfering with his battle with Nero, and appearing in his true Sin Devil Trigger form.

Dante seems to understand that Urizen merely represents not only his brother's thirst for power but also his desire to never be weak and cast it away like he originally believed his mother had done to him. Strangely, Urizen denies any knowledge of this and instead believes that the only way to grow more powerful was to lose something. In Urizen's case, Vergil's humanity. Thus, he fails to understand on how Dante can be so powerful since he has never "lost" anything.

Strategy
Urizen as a boss is fought a total of five times throughout Devil May Cry 5 in the following missions: Prologue, Mission 8, Mission 10, Mission 12, and Mission 17. Of these battles, only Prologue, Mission 8, Mission 12 and Mission 17 are winnable, though defeating him in the Prologue will only unlock a secret ending and the next difficulty setting after whichever setting this battle is won on. Mission 10 cannot be won, and the battle will end after a certain amount of damage is inflicted on either Urizen's crystal or Dante.

Defeating Urizen in the Prologue is entirely possible without an upgraded Nero, it is simply VERY difficult, even on Human or Devil Hunter settings. Like with Mission 10, the battle with Urizen automatically ends once Nero's health bar has been depleted.

The battles taking place in the Prologue, the first half of Mission 8 and Mission 10 are all the same, with Urizen sitting upon his throne, using a crystal of red demonic power to conjure a barrier to protect himself while he bombards his opponent with various energy projectiles. Urizen will use Artemis' smaller lazer projectiles that will strike around the area his adversary is standing on, requiring them to dodge, or Artemis' sweeping full energy beam attack, which must be jumped over or rolled under to avoid. As Urizen's crystal takes more damage, he will occasionally fire two of these beams, one after another, in sweeping blasts.

Urizen will also employ Elder Geryon Knight's time stopping spheres to capture his opponent in slowed time, usually following up with more energy blasts of Artemis or Goliath's plasma fireballs twice in a row for maximum damage. He will use Goliath's fireballs in-between Artemis' lazers as well, and these spheres inflict high damage with each strike.

Attacking Urizen's crystal is the only way to destroy his barrier and attack Urizen directly. The barrier has high health and strong defenses, coupled with Urizen's constant bombardment of energy attacks making attacking the crystal directly for long stretches unwise. The crystal is vulnerable to long range attacks from Nero and Dante's revolver and handguns respectively, with charged shots recommended for maximum damage. Attacking the crystal with Red Queen of any of Dante's Devil Arms at close range with the fast and high damaging combos will also do plenty of damage but sticking close carries the risk of being caught in any of Urizen's attacks. After the crystal has taken a certain amount of continuous damage, Urizen will raise his right hand out and release a pulse shockwave to knock his adversary away from it, inflicting partial damage as well.

The crystal is not without its own defenses, and after taking enough damage, it will glow and hum for a split-second before expanding into a series of high-damaging spikes that will send Urizen's opponent flying backwards.

Once Urizen's crystal has lost all its health, his barrier will be destroyed and he will become vulnerable to attack. In the Prologue, Urizen remains on his throne as he repairs the crystal to restore his barrier, leaving him open to attack from Nero's Red Queen, Blue Rose, various Devil Breakers, and Devil Trigger and Buster if the mission is being replayed, for a very short period of time. Once Urizen restores his barrier, the crystal will be back to full health but with lowered defenses. To make up for this, Urizen's attacks become more aggressive.

Once Urizen's barrier has been destroyed in Mission 8, he rises from his throne and battles Nero directly. For this stage of the battle against Nero and later Dante, Urizen employs all of his previous energy attacks but adds a few new moves for increased difficulty. He will use the various roots of the Qliphoth attached to his back to strike out and impale his adversaries, inflicting high damage. His crystal will still defend him in this phase but no longer creates a full barrier to protect Urizen, and it can be destroyed by high-damage attacks, leaving Urizen vulnerable to direct attacks. Urizen can be staggered in this phase, leaving him open to high-damaging combos. In this phase of the battle, only Dante can defeat Urizen, as Nero's battle will end once his health bar is depleted.

The final battle against Urizen takes place in Mission 17, with Dante as his opponent. Having devoured the fruit of the Qliphoth, Urizen sheds the root like armor he previously donned and reveals his true demonic form. He moves much faster without the armor to weigh him down, while retaining all of his previous energy attacks, he adds a few new and dangerous techniques to his repertoire. He can now teleport around the battlefield using portals resembling Malphas, and when attacked directly by Dante, can strike back with downward punches and high kicks, inflicting massive damage. He also begins using purple variants of Vergil's Summoned Swords that strike out in random patterns that inflict high damage and knock back.

The best way of inflicting damage against Urizen in Missions 12 and 17 with Dante is charging his Sin Devil Trigger meter and activating it once full, using the Sin Devil Trigger's high-damaging attacks to empty his health meter rapidly. When too much damage has been inflicted on Dante, use regular Devil Trigger to recover health while attacking him head-on, the raised damage status of Dante's attacks usually being enough to stagger him momentarily, allowing Dante to inflict more damage and recover health.

Powers and Abilities
Urizen (Vergil) is easily the most powerful demon seen in the series thus far, with his power increased to a different level than even Mundus, the Prince of Darkness himself and former Emperor of Hell, and therefore also the equally powerful Demon God Argosax, who had subdued every demon in the Underworld with his power. In Nico's notes, she states that after consuming the fruit from the Qliphoth, Urizen had the power to shake the foundations of the world, and going so far as to say that one would need the power of a god to defeat him in that state.

His power is boosted so great that not only was he able to effortlessly defeat Nero twice, first ripping off Devil Bringer and then leaving him incapable of fighting back in their recent fight, and even the infamous Dante, his own brother, aided by Trish and Lady proved to be no match for Urizen when the latter wasn't even moving from his seat. He easily overpowered Dante in Devil Trigger state and shattered Rebellion with a single punch.

Outside of his offensive powers, Urizen possess more creative abilities, such as making Trish and Lady the cores of new powerful Demons to serve him.

However, even Urizen's abilities has its limits, as after an ardous struggle, Nero managed to break through his shield and actually wound the Demon King. In Nico's notes, Urizen remained seated on his throne in the Qlipoth during his battles with Dante and Nero not only out of contempt but also to empower himself from all the human blood the demonic tree was gathering. In addition, Dante was able to battle Urizen to a stand-still after recovering from their last battle and appearing in his true Sin Devil Trigger form. Later on, when Urizen had devoured the fruit from the Qliphoth, he attained power beyond reckoning, but even then he was still defeated by Dante who had unlocked his true hidden power.

Etymology
The name Urizen comes from the English poet William Blake's mythology. Urizen is a god-like being and the embodiment of conventional reason and law.